Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 97525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
"No."
His hand gripped my jaw and his mouth followed suit, crashing down on my lips with a neediness that ached.
"Promise me?” He dragged me to the edge of the counter until I was fully against him, the soft material of his shorts doing nothing to disguise his arousal.
It wasn’t fair, the way he could turn me into a raw cavern of want with just the awareness of his need. Why did I care so much? How was I so easily manipulated by his desire?
“I promise," I gasped. "Please, I need..." I wrapped my legs around him, and yanked at his shirt, desperate to bring his mouth back to mine.
“You need what?”
I fumbled with the top of his shorts. Reaching inside, I gripped him. "This."
“What you really need…”—he moved his hips forward and his cock thrust through my grip—“is to be bad."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I swallowed. "Then make me bad."
"I'll make you worse."
Then he fucked me, right there on the kitchen counter. When I came, I screamed my orgasm against the waves and the gulls and the wind. And forty-two stories above us, the colossal mansion on the cliff was silent and empty.
Chapter 58
Living together changes a relationship. Brant and I didn't have the normal relationship issues. There were no dirty dishes to argue over. No laundry left on unswept floors. No, the traditional sources of strife were handled by our over-attentive staff of seven. Instead, our relationship only improved as a result of our addresses merging.
If I had any doubt of my love, it faded every time I woke up next to him. His focus was best in the morning, and he woke me up before dawn each morning with gentle swipes of his fingers through my hair, and soft kisses placed on the neck, forehead, and cheeks. I'd roll into his arms, and there we'd spend an extra hour in bed, drifting in and out of sleep as the sun peeked, then rose over the silver ocean. There was a coffee bar by the bedroom’s fireplace, and it was set to brew at six, filling the room with the scent of ground coffee beans. I would lose him for a few minutes as he fixed both of us a large mug—his black, mine with cream and sweetener. Then he'd crawl back into the massive California king bed, his body warm against my ice-cold hands and feet. Sometimes he read, my body curling into his as I fell back asleep on his chest. Sometimes we fucked, his hard-on impossible to ignore against my leg, our playful kisses turning deeper and more heated. But mostly, we talked. About his day or mine. About HYA events or BSX projects. About our future and whether we would have two kids or four. Private or public schooling. Whether they would go to Stanford or join the Peace Corps.
In the evenings, on the nights he came home, we cooked. Christine, the chef, acted as our instructor, and our skills grew with each dinner. My forte was implementation, Brant's prep. We put on music, Christine kicked us off with general instruction, and then sat back and let us struggle our way through the process.
Sometimes he'd get home too late. I'd save him a plate of her creation and sit with him on the upper porch. With the crash of the ocean in the background, we’d talk while I sipped wine and he ate like a teenager. His appetite was huge. I never knew that before we lived together. I had no idea that he snacked constantly then ate large meals, as if he was burning a thousand calories a day, his taste in cuisine as varied as my own.
I had known, and quickly verified, that he worked way too much. Had horrible tastes in clothes, music, and whiskey. Couldn’t recall half of his days when we sat down to talk. Lost track of time when steaks were on the grill. Loved, above all else, the sound of my orgasm. Wanted, more than anything, to spend the rest of his life with me.
The closer we grew, the more I was tempted to bring up the secrets that lay between us. To talk through things until we discovered a way to have a real future. I knew there was some path there, despite all of Jillian’s warnings to the contrary.
Our love could carry us through. It could be the glue that held him together when his world fell apart.
I wanted to kick at the support beams of all that he knew.
Expose the truth behind all of it.
Tell him everything and see if he survived.
See if he stayed.
But damn, it was such a risk.
I risked losing him, destroying his life.
I risked saving our love, our future.
Chapter 59 - Brant
I am not a simple man. I know that. We all discovered that the summer of my eleventh year. The summer it snowed in San Francisco. The summer the three girls disappeared. The summer my parents bought a computer, and I stopped playing outside. That summer, everything as I knew it changed.